When Sherlock met Sally
by Lossie
Summary: It all started with a coffee and a donut. Sherlock/Sally


**A/N:** At last! This story has been sitting on my laptop for a year and a half. You have no idea how thankful I am that I was finally able to complete it. I really like the idea of Sherlock and Sally (through my OTP is definitely Sherlolly), through it's very AU, since canon-Sally is not very fond of our favourite consulting detective.  
>Anyway, I hope you'll like it and that you'll be nice enough to leave a review, since I would really like to know what you think :)<p>

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><p><strong>WHEN SHERLOCK MET SALLY<strong>

_Sally Donovan was twenty three when she first met Sherlock Holmes._

Sally had just started her work in New Scotland Yard's Homicide. She was beyond excited – and quite shocked, to be honest – when she got the job. She wasn't expecting it in the slightest, but it was surely a very pleasant surprise when she got a phone call from DI Lestrade two days after her second interview with the good news. The first thing she had thought after he hung up was that she was in for the adventure of her live.

Or so it had seemed.

It wasn't even a full week after she had started and people already seemed to hate her guts. She couldn't really blame them, not really. If she had been in their shoes and a smartass newbie started off her first case like she did, she would have probably reacted in the same way. She couldn't help it through. When she had applied for a job, she was expecting her colleagues to be more or less intelligent and they turned out to be a bunch of morons. At least most of the time, because she couldn't honestly say that they didn't have their moments sometimes.

The only exception to this whole go-fuck-yourself-Donovan thing was her boss, DI Lestrade, who appeared to at least appreciate her enthusiasm on occasions.

She knew she was fairly young for a cop, completely inexperienced and probably knew nothing, but that didn't change the fact that when her team's verdict on who is the murderer wasn't anywhere close the truth, she had spoken her mind.

It turned out to be a mistake on her part, of course.

She was just fresh out of her nth dressing in Lestrade's office and she was unable to remove the image of her boss's disappointed face. All the evidence was against her opinion on the matter and she did spoke out of line, so now she was simply trying in vain to disappear behind the stacks of papers on her desk, when a cup of coffee and a paper bag appeared in her line of vision.

She looked up to see a man, not much older than herself, standing in front of her desk. She gave him a questioning look and he just rolled his eyes in obvious exasperation.

"You were right," he said and set the bag and the cuppa carefully on one of the stacks.

"What?" She asked, utterly confused.

She was well aware that all the people in the office were giving them strange looks and then it finally clicked. She had seen the man on the crime scene earlier that day. He was without doubt the infamous Sherlock Holmes, a consultant of some sort and a supposed nightmare of every detective in this division.

"I said 'You were right'. It wasn't the lover of the victim, but her son." He smirked at her. "You were right."

An "Oh," was all she could manage.

She had heard stories about him, about all the horrible ways he behaved towards people, and she couldn't quite understand why he was nice to her. Nobody ever truly liked her and here he was, a notorious asshole, all but smiling at her and complementing her work.

"Black with one sugar and a croissant. Enjoy." He strolled off, but then stopped suddenly when he was at Lestrade office's door. He turned around and winked at her. "See you later, Sally."

He was long gone before she could formulate a coherent reply.

xxxxxxx

_She was twenty four when she befriended him._

From that memorable day on they saw a lot of each other.

As it turned out he had spoken to Lestrade after their brief conversation and confirmed what was obvious to her almost from the beginning.

It was the victim's son who killed her. The victim was about to update her will and because she knew that her only son was profligate and currently a bankrupt, thanks to his yet another unsuccessful attempt at business-making, she decided to rewrite the entire family fortune to her lover. The son, when he found out about this, decided to kill her and transfer all the blame to the lover. He counterfeited with the evidence, but Sherlock managed to catch him red-handed when he was attempting to hide the gun, his weapon of choice, in the lover's house.

He saved her wounded pride and also managed to earn her gratitude.

Surprisingly, he was still nice to her after all was said and done (or as nice as he could get on his better days). He sometimes brought her coffee or something to eat (or both), he requested her presence on the crime scenes when he consulted and she soon discovered that she genuinely liked him. He was a bit off-the-wall, but it somehow made him more endearing than anything else and besides she was an odd duck herself. They weren't the most talkative people, but she had still gotten to know him quite well and vice versa.

Of course it didn't make her work at the Yard any easier. People gossiped about them and she had caught herself on the verge of punching someone more than once when they insulted Sherlock in her presence. Especially Anderson, the king of idiots from the NSY Forensic Services, who seemed to hate Sherlock the most. The feeling was mutual, as Sherlock made a point to insult Anderson at least once every time they had the misfortune to meet.

She still felt like a sore thumb and it hurt. Literally no one wanted to befriend her, but on the other hand she came there to work, not to make friends. Besides, she couldn't very well force people to like her and she was not going to change her behaviour or stop her odd friendship with Sherlock just to make other friends.

If she really needed to choose between them and Sherlock, she would stick with him.

xxxxxxx

_She was twenty six when he saved her life._

It was a particularly difficult case.

Their serial killer was a very clever beast this time around and even Sherlock was unable to find anything to prove once and for all that Frank Thompson was really the one who raped and then mercilessly killed eleven women. The fact that Mr Thompson was a well-known, rich and admired British citizen made it even harder to pin the bastard down.

Eventually someone brightly suggested setting up a trap. They needed a trusted woman to attract Thompson's attention so they would be able to catch him in the act, so to speak. She wasn't really enthusiastic about this idea, but she wanted to see the man behind the bars and so she volunteered.

They dressed her up, Sherlock told her everything he thought she needed to know about the man and the way she should behave to catch his eye, and then she was off to her first undercover mission.

To say it ended in the biggest fiasco imaginable would be an understatement of the century.

Yes, she had managed to find him in the pub Sherlock mentioned. Yes, she was then able to talk with him for a while. Yes, he had brought her a fancy drink. Yes, he had asked her to come home with him.

So far, so good.

But he had also managed to spike her drink with something nasty and so she was unable to contact the so-called rescue team before she had lost consciousness.

When she woke up, she was tied to a wooden table in her underwear only and Thompson was standing over her with a smile that she would have describe as 'charming' if he wasn't about to kill her.

She couldn't fight back tears. She has never been so terrified before, ever.

Thompson moved closer and started to remove her underwear by cutting it into shards with his pocket knife. He was speaking, but she was too scared and petrified to pay attention. When he was done, he started touching her. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried in vain to suppress her sobs. She didn't want to give him the satisfaction.

By that point she was fairly sure she wasn't going to make it out alive.

And then Thompson suddenly stopped. She opened her eyes and when she saw Sherlock, his face so white it was almost see-through and his eyes blazing with rage, she broke completely.

She cried while he untied her from the table and when he covered her with his coat, and then when he carried her outside, shielding her in his arms.

He didn't let her go, even for the medical examination. He then took her to her flat and stayed with her for a whole week, taking care of her and trying to improve her mood anyway he could. He even brought his violin and played for her.

Needless to say, their relationship was never the same after that.

xxxxxxx

_She was twenty eight when Sherlock met Doctor John Watson._

At first she was slightly jealous of Sherlock's friendship with the man, but John turned out to be a great guy. Where Sherlock was rude, lacked a sense of humour that was considered normal and was probably asexual, John was polite, funny and a womanizer. They evened each other out and Sally was glad that Sherlock had gotten himself another friend. She and John got along just fine and she soon found herself a regular guest in their flat on Baker Street.

She absolutely adored Mrs Hudson. The older lady was surprisingly quirky and what her parents would call a bad influence for sure, because she swore like a sailor. She was a good cook too and always had some freshly baked cookies lying around, through her tea was awful, since she was apparently unable to brew it right.

Of course there were also things that irked her about John. Like the fact that he was hogging all of Sherlock's attention.

No, she wasn't jealous.

Okay, maybe a little.

But only because Sherlock used to shower _her_ with this sort of attention and now it was all reserved for the ex army doctor. It was just so unfair! She had been his friend for the last five years and they've spent so much time together over that time that she didn't even know what to do with herself when he wasn't around.

One day she just snapped.

"You utter bastard!" She yelled, punching him in the chest as hot tears of anger ran down her face. He had just ignored her again and it was too much. Couldn't he understand that she didn't have anyone else? Why was he doing this to her? "Stop treating me like air! When I talk to you, you can't just fucking ignore me! It's just low, even for you! I'm bending over backwards to help you in whatever way I can and you still have guts to act like I'm not even here! If I'm bothering you so much then maybe you should just tell me that to the face! I will go and find someone who is not a stuck-up, emotionally handicapped ass three quarters of the time!"

She didn't wait for his answer. She just ran as far away from him as she could. Somehow she found herself in one of the pubs they used to hand out in before their friendship entered this stage of drama.

Resigned to her fate – namely the fact that she had just destroyed her only meaningful relationship with something as stupid as jealousy – she ordered a pint and sat in one of the corner booths to wallow in self-pity.

She wasn't alone for long,

Eyes as wide as dinner plates, she stared at Sherlock, who looked wild, for the lack of a better world. His whole body was shaking and he was flexing his fingers as if he was trying to stop himself from reaching out and strangling her here and there. He was red in the face, which was almost as unusual as his lapse in self-control.

"You idiotic _woman_," he spat, the word 'woman' sounding like an insult. "You can't lash out at me and then run away like a bat from hell! I too have feelings!"

She softened somewhat at that. Sherlock was not the type of man to apologize – she would be surprised if the word 'sorry' was even in his dictionary – but here he was, doing just that. He yelled and he raged, but he was here. He had run after her!

Sally smiled.

"I'm sorry."

Sherlock just lowered himself to the seat opposite of hers, as if all of the anger had left him, and took a swing of her beer.

xxxxxxx

_She was twenty nine when she first discovered her feelings for Sherlock._

It was the whole Irene Adler case that had opened her eyes.

She wasn't supposed to get involved in it, but since she practically lived in 221B now, she was sort of invited along. At first it was simply fun, a case much bigger and more important than what she was used to, but when The Woman herself appeared in the picture and Sherlock started to behave very unlike himself, it wasn't so much fun anymore.

The way he looked at her, the way he paid attention to every detail about her and finally the fact that he was somehow able to recognize her by her naked body, it all made her feel so empty inside, she almost couldn't bear it.

It was like the time with John all over again, but worse. When it came to John, she had always known that they were only friends. Even if she enjoyed teasing him about the unfortunate innuendos and people's general opinion that the two were a couple, she had always been certain that Sherlock wasn't romantically involved with the doctor.

While it had still made her jealous, it was nothing compared to red-hot envy that was burning her veins from the inside out. She hated Irene Adler. She _hated_ her. Hated her beyond words, because she was making Sherlock feel things that he wasn't supposed to be feeling.

She had been going crazy with all those feelings for days before someone enlightened her as to what they actually meant.

It had been Molly Hooper – sweet and soft-spoken Mousey Molly, who was painfully infatuated with the consulting detective – who had stopped her one evening on her way out of the lab, shortly after the whole affair with The Woman was finally over.

"You love him," she said quietly with a sad slightly broken smile on her face. "And he loves you too."

As she mulled over Molly's word later the same day, she came to the only conclusion that made sense – it was completely true. She had feelings for Sherlock, strong ones at that, but at the same time she was also certain that he didn't share her sentiments.

And that knowledge was almost enough to break her heart.

xxxxxxx

_She wasn't even thirty when her heart was shattered into pieces._

She should have known the moment Sherlock had mentioned the damned name that Moriarty meant nothing but trouble, but there were other things to worry about and other criminals to catch at the time.

It didn't make it any easier to witness Sherlock's fall from grace.

After the Adler woman's disappearance, Sherlock started to avoid her. They had known each other for almost seven years by that point and she knew immediately that something bad was about to happen, but she had decided to let him handle it.

What a colossal mistake it had been.

Watching Sherlock fall from the roof was not something she had ever wanted to see. It hurt so much she was afraid that if she took one breath she would just shatter into pieces. John had rushed to help him, but they both knew it was too late. The building had been too high and there was blood on the pavement, right where his head had hit it.

She collapsed on the street and cried, and cried, and cried, until John had gathered her in his arms. And then they cried together.

xxxxxxx

_She was thirty three when she kissed Sherlock senseless._

She grieved for so long she couldn't even remember how it felt not to mourn.

It took her more than two years to get herself more or less together and she was still starting to tear up every time she saw one of those 'I believe in Sherlock' graffiti somewhere in the city. She was a mess and even though she had John to lean on, it simply wasn't enough. She missed Sherlock not only because she loved him, but mostly because she couldn't remember her life without him in it. Every single good memory she had was somehow connected to him. Even her damn morning coffee – the same boring black with one sugar – was a painful reminder of their first meeting.

She visited Sherlock's grave as often as she could and on every anniversary, she bought him a bouquet of asters. They were simple and the only flowers Sherlock ever liked. They also symbolized love, so they fitted their purpose perfectly. She never believed in God and the idea of heaven and hell always seemed a bit unreal, but she still liked to think that there was something after death and that wherever Sherlock was right now, he could feel that she hadn't forgotten about him.

It was two days before the third anniversary and she was in the florist to order the bouquet when John called her. It wasn't unexpected of him to do so, but she knew for a fact he had had some sort of a meeting at five and it wasn't supposed to end till at least six.

It was only quarter past five.

"John? Something's wrong?" She asked when he fell silent after they said their hellos.

"No, everything is just... I don't know. It's really strange..." His voice sounded heavy and thick for some reason. As if he was about to cry or have a breakdown.

_Oh God, please, not again_, she thought desperately, the memory of the first anniversary when John almost killed himself with the amount of alcohol he had drunk vivid in her mind.

"Where are you? I'll be there in a moment, I swear. Just don't do anything stupid, okay?" She said as calmly as she could, praying that John would be okay; that she would be on time again.

"I'm in the flat," he answered and then added as an afterthought: "Thank you, Sally."

"No problem."

He hung up and she practically flew out of the shop, the flowers all but forgotten. She hailed the cab and told the driver to make it quick. She had half a mind to show him the badge, levy on the cab and drive there herself, but she decided against it. It would do her no good to get arrested when John clearly needed her.

The drive took longer than normal or so she thought. She got out of the cab as fast as she could and ran to the door, tapping impatiently until a sobbing Mrs Hudson opened the door, a handkerchief in hand.

"Oh God...," she whispered, the worst case scenarios popping randomly inside her mind. She ran up the stairs, imagining John lying dead on the floor, a bullet through his head. She knew she should have confiscated the bloody gun after Sherlock's funeral! She just knew it wasn't safe to leave it with him, when he was taking it so hard, but...

She stepped into the living room and stopped dead in her tracks.

"Hello, Sally," Sherlock greeted her calmly, his eyes uncharacteristically soft. He had an icepack pressed to his rapidly swelling left cheek.

Sally was lost for words. She literally couldn't think of anything to say that wasn't involving manhandling the insufferable man before her and probably beating him to death in the process. He was alive, no doubt about it. John and Mrs Hudson's tears were a testimony to it. The question was how was it possible and why was he hiding up until now, but she simply couldn't force the words out, so she did the next logical thing and before long she was curled up in his lap, crying her eyes out into his dirty 'I love London' hoodie.

It took almost an hour before she was able to do something other than cling to him for dear life or cry, and by then Sherlock was in the middle of explaining all the whys and hows he could. When he was finished, she was glad that she didn't move away. From what he told them, however little it was, he went through hell and back during the past three years and he did it all to protect them.

It was hard to wrap her mind around it all at once.

It was only after Mrs Hudson and John had long since retried for the night that she spoke.

"I love you, Sherlock," she whispered into his chest. She felt him stiffen slightly and she mentally scolded herself. She couldn't even begin to understand why she said it in the first place, but apparently, it was a day full of surprises, because soon enough he relaxed and hugged her tighter.

"John told me about your struggle with grief. I'm sorry for all the pain I've caused you," he murmured, his deep voice vibrating against her ear. "I'm also sorry for the way I treated you before the fall. You didn't deserve it. You have never... I just... Damn it!"

She looked up in shock and watched as Sherlock's face screwed up in a scowl. She had rarely heard him curse and he never stammered while talking to her before. A few minutes passed before he put himself under control again.

"I've always thought that caring is not an advantage. Feelings make you weak, easy to hurt and dependable, so how can they be anything but useless? But then I overheard you speak at that crime scene. The pace of your deductions was so uncanny! You were in your element and you were exquisitely good, so good..." He smiled at her and lightly touched her cheek. "You are an extraordinary woman, Sally Donovan, and I want you to be aware of the fact that I reciprocate your feelings."

She felt like crying again, but instead she simply took his face between her trembling hands and kissed him with all her might, their lips melting against each other.

As a child she had always thought that she would end up with someone ordinary, safe and maybe a little boring. Her mother would be delighted if she did. An office worker of some kind would have been perfect for her childhood fantasies and she had been quite alright with this vision, this version of herself, for most of her life.

Than Sherlock Holmes happened.

He had turned her dull ordinary life into something unique and as she kissed him, and felt him kiss her back with equal devotion, she couldn't help thinking that life indeed had its ways, because it all started with a coffee and a donut.


End file.
